The Samsara Jade

Chapter 13

The wind roared like an angry dragon. It ripped past Li Chen’s ears with a deafening sound. 

He was falling. He was falling faster than he had ever moved in his entire life. The freezing rain from the storm above followed them down into the massive, dark hole. But soon, even the rain stopped. They were falling too deep. They were leaving the normal world behind and entering a terrifying abyss. 

"Ahhhhh! No! Help me!" 

Enforcer Mo was screaming at the top of his lungs. The tall, cruel man who had just wanted to cut off Li Chen’s arms was now crying like a frightened baby. He thrashed wildly in the air. He swung his heavy metal fists, trying to punch Li Chen, trying to push him away. 

But Li Chen held on with incredible strength. His dark, cold eyes stared right into Mo’s terrified face. Li Chen did not scream. He did not cry. He was completely focused on survival. 

The Beast Chasm was completely black, but there was a faint, sickly purple light coming from the bottom. It was the toxic fog, the deadly miasma. As they fell closer to the purple light, Li Chen could finally see the walls of the chasm. 

The walls were not smooth. They were covered in massive, jagged rocks. Sharp stones stuck out from the cliff like giant, grey teeth. And the terrible truth became clear: the giant hole was getting narrower as they went deeper. 

"The walls are closing in," Li Chen thought quickly. His sharp senses, boosted by his First Level Qi, saw a giant rock spike pointing straight up at them from the cliff face. If they hit it, they would both be ripped in half. 

Mo saw it too. "We are going to hit it! We are going to die!" Mo shrieked. 

Li Chen knew he had to act instantly. He did not have a weapon, but he had something better. He had a human shield. 

Using all the wild, explosive energy he had stolen from the giant Spirit Blood-Hound, Li Chen grabbed Mo’s heavy iron armor. With a violent twist of his waist and a powerful pull of his arms, Li Chen spun them around in mid-air. 

He moved his own body to the top and pulled Mo’s massive, armored body directly underneath him. 

"What are you doing?!" Mo screamed in pure horror. 

Before Mo could finish his sentence, they crashed into the side of the cliff. 

CRASH! 

They hit the jagged wall at a terrifying speed. But Li Chen did not hit the rock. Mo hit the rock. 

Mo’s heavy black iron armor slammed against the sharp stone spike. Bright yellow sparks exploded in the dark air like fireworks. The sound of metal tearing and rock breaking was louder than thunder. 

"Arghhhhh!" Mo let out a wet, bubbling scream of absolute agony. 

The sharp rock tore right through the thick iron armor. It ripped into Mo’s back, breaking his spine. Blood sprayed out into the dark air, painting the cliff wall red. 

But they did not stop falling. The impact only bounced them off the wall. They continued to plunge deeper and deeper down into the dark abyss. 

Li Chen held tightly onto the dying Enforcer. He kept Mo positioned right below him. Every time they fell close to the wall, Li Chen used his feet and arms to steer Mo’s body into the rocks. 

Smash! Scrape! Boom! 

They bounced off the jagged cliff walls three more times on the way down. Each time, Mo took the full force of the impact. His heavy armor was slowly ripped to pieces. His bones were crushed. His screams grew weaker and weaker until they completely stopped. 

Mo was dead, but his thick body and broken armor were still protecting Li Chen from the deadly rocks. 

"We are almost at the bottom," Li Chen told himself. The sickly purple light was no longer far away. It was right below them. It looked like a boiling ocean of glowing purple clouds. 

Li Chen tightened his grip on Mo’s ruined armor. He pulled his legs up slightly. He prepared his body for the final hit. He gathered all the remaining dark Qi in his stomach and pushed it down into his legs to protect them. 

WHOOSH. 

They burst through the thick ceiling of the purple fog. 

Instantly, the world turned into a glowing purple nightmare. And then, the ground rushed up to meet them. 

BOOM! 

The final impact was incredibly violent. It felt like a massive meteor hitting the earth. 

They crashed directly into the muddy floor of the Beast Chasm. 

Mo hit the ground first. The sheer force of the fall, combined with the heavy weight of his iron armor, completely flattened the dead Enforcer. His body and his armor were instantly crushed into a thin, bloody paste into the mud. The loud sound of thousands of bones snapping echoed through the purple fog. 

Li Chen was on top of Mo. Mo’s body acted like a thick, fleshy cushion, absorbing most of the deadly impact. But it was not enough to save Li Chen completely. 

The terrible shockwave traveled up through Mo’s crushed body and directly into Li Chen’s feet. 

CRACK! SNAP! 

Li Chen’s eyes went wide. A blinding flash of pure, white-hot pain exploded in his brain. 

The bones in his left leg and his right leg instantly shattered. His newly healed muscles tore apart. The dark Qi he had sent to his legs was completely destroyed by the massive force of the fall. 

Li Chen was violently thrown off the ruined pile of Mo’s body. He flew through the purple fog and rolled roughly across the wet, rocky dirt of the chasm floor. 

He rolled for twenty feet before finally coming to a stop. 

Total silence returned to the abyss. 

Li Chen lay on his back. He stared up at the glowing purple fog above him. He was breathing heavily. His chest went up and down. He was alive. He had survived a fall that should have killed a master cultivator. 

"I made it," he whispered. He tried to sit up. He tried to move his legs to stand. 

Nothing happened. 

Li Chen looked down at his lower body. His legs were twisted at horrible, unnatural angles. The bones were broken into dozens of tiny pieces. 

Pieces of sharp white bone poked through his bloody skin. He could not feel his toes. He could not feel his knees. He was completely paralyzed from the waist down. Again.